One of the most beautiful temples in the world is the Buddhist monastery Taung Kalat, which is located on the top of the mountain of the same name in Myanmar. In fact, this mountain is nothing more than an extinct volcano hundreds of years ago (the last eruption dates back to 442 AD). Now, on the top of the former volcano, the Buddhist monastery Taung Kalat is built, which, due to its unique location, is prescribed a variety of mystical properties. Indeed, how many temples do you know built on the vent, albeit extinct, but still a volcano!
The vent (sometimes called the nekkom) was formed when the magma flowing out of a volcanic eruption solidified in it. While the volcano is active, it can cause explosions. And I must admit, it would be a shame if this beautiful monastery catapulted into the stratosphere. However, today, we must say with hope, the volcano is considered extinct.
The monastery was built in a very picturesque place. Not only is the temple itself located on the top of a volcano, whose height reaches 737 meters, but the surroundings themselves are very beautiful. Nearby is another mountain called Mount Popa. The height of this mountain is 1518 meters, and this peak is also a once extinct volcano!
Mount Popa is considered a real oasis, as its bowels are literally dotted with numerous springs (more than 200 springs). Many trees and herbs grow both on the mountain and around it. The fertile volcanic soil only contributes to such a riot of vegetation.
Popa Mount is an extinct volcano in central Myanmar, located 245 km northwest of Naypyidaw and 50 km southeast of Bagan. The highest point is 1518 meters above sea level. The last eruption was in 442 BC. e.
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In good weather, the Popa volcano is visible 60 km away.
To the southwest of the volcano there is a small mountain Taung Kalat with a height of 737 meters, at the top of which there is a Buddhist monastery. This mountain is also called “Popa Taungkalat”.
Popa Taungkalat is considered the most famous and powerful sanctuary of spirits (nat) in Myanmar. There is a special hall at the top of the monastery, where there are statues of 37 different spirits.
Numerous pilgrims visit Popu Taungkalat every year, especially during the Nayon full moon festival in May-June and during the Nadaw full moon in November-December.
Most tourists either make a day trip here from Bagan, or stop by on their way from Bagan to other parts of the country.
Since ancient times, the rock has been the abode of the most powerful Nat spirits: Mina Mahagiri and his sister, and the main non-Buddhist cult place of all Burma.
At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, the Buddhist monastery Taung Kalat was built on its top, in which the main place was again assigned to the natam.
The staircase with 777 steps and the monastery were built thanks to the efforts of a very famous person in Burma - the monk U Khandi (1868-1949).
All his life he devoted to asceticism in the construction of pagodas and temples on natural heights.
In the list of his affairs, besides this monastery, the most famous are: the restoration of shrines on Mandalay Hill and the Chaittiyo Pagoda (this is where the famous Golden Rock is).
The Burmese themselves are not confused with the names. Popa itself is called simply Taung Ma-gyi (mother hill), and the rock with the monastery is called Taung Kalat (pedestal hill).
The most beautiful landscapes open from such a height. Before you is a view of the ancient and mysterious city of Pagan. From here you can also see the Taung Ma-gi mountain. Its appearance can only be compared with Mount Fujiyama in Japan. You can see a canyon with a depth of 914 meters. All in all, the difficult climb up the almost sheer cliff is worth the sight around. By the way, here you need to remember not only about safety, but also watch your belongings. Because the administration of the monastery is not responsible for all the macaques, which are not against stealing something from a huge number of tourists.
Such a place for the monastery was chosen not only because of the difficult path to it. The mountain itself has been considered a sacred place since ancient times.
It is also called the Olympus of Burma. There are 37 spirits (nats) who are revered in Buddhism on a par with Buddha. So, the legends say that the strongest of them live in this mountain. So the temple is not only a cultural property. Every year it is a place of pilgrimage for Buddhists from all over the world. Especially during the festival of the full moon Nyon in May-June and during the full moon should be in November-December. In the past, thousands of animals were sacrificed during the celebration. If you do not want to offend the Nats, then it is not advisable to dress in red or black when visiting the mountain, and bring meat, especially pork, with you.
One of the most famous Buddhist hermits, U Khandi, who died in 1949, maintained the condition of these steps for many years. Now, to its shame, the Burmese government pays very little attention to the population living here and the preservation of this place.
For tourists, here are the shus impressions:
The car can be taken from the hotel. As of November 2008, the cost of a car for half a day is $ 15, for a day $ 35. Up to Popa about 50 km - we fit in half a day.
In the morning at the lobby there is a car - not a very old Toyota, the driver is trendy, stylish, smart, a cell phone dangles on the lounge - a sign of local super coolness.
He speaks English tolerably, but as a local historian - so-so.
We leave the old city (our hotel is outside the walls of old Bagan right on the banks of the Irrawaddy) and past the horse carriage parking we turn south along the central road towards New Bagan.
Temples and pagodas of all kinds, styles and sizes flit by.
A fantastic sight, it is probably simply impossible to get used to it, if not to be born here. That on the first day, that on the next, the reaction is about the same - unreal!
In fifteen minutes we will leave Bagan. The same yellow-green landscape, only it seems that the area is even drier, and the vegetation is even rarer.
Further - only along the plain, all around the dry savannah, trees more and more along the road and near the villages.
There are many planted fields and sugar palms along the way. All vegetation is kind of gray-yellow-greenish and dusty. Maize, sesame, something else unfamiliar.
We left early, so we ended up at a time when the children were moving to school together.
For such a sparsely populated area, the number of schoolchildren seemed simply enormous.
Clean, serious - on bikes and on foot, in groups and singles - and so almost all the way. All in ironed shirts and blouses, neat lounges. Boys do not bully - apparently they cherish their clothes.
This no longer surprised me, but rather pleased me.
The fact that the Burmese are very clean and neat in their clothes I saw already here. And the fact that Burma is a country of literate people and has a distinctive culture, I realized even earlier - from the literature I read before the trip.
But still, when I saw in Yangon how many books are sold in ordinary street markets, I was pretty surprised. What they sell on the streets in Asia is known: who was - he saw, who was not - probably guesses.
Primary education in Burma is compulsory at the state level. In addition, most boys go through novitiate in monasteries. There they are taught to read and write, as well as the basics of Buddhism, traditional history and culture.
According to international organizations, literacy in Burma is 90% (Thailand - 92%, India - 73%).
Looking at the statistics, one must remember that Burma is very multinational (7 proper Myanmar central regions and seven national districts). In addition to the main people of Myanmar, there are nomadic mountain tribes who are still engaged in slash-and-burn agriculture, and the nagas living in the remote mountains in the north (who only in the late seventies, under pressure from the government at their general kurultai, recommended their fellow tribesmen to stop headhunting) and more Many things.
Above, on a flat top, the monastery is white and gold squat buildings, at the foot of the transverse gallery with a retaining wall towards the road. The stairs to the top begin from it.
Opposite across the road is the local market and catering.
To the right of the cliff, a narrow green valley with a village descends. Behind the rock (as it turned out later), about a kilometer away, there is a rather large monastery with various buildings.
Steps lead to the transverse gallery, such as a wide porch-portico with elephants on the sides and a pyta (tiered tower) above.
We went up to the gallery, here we have to take off our shoes. Shoes in a bag and in a backpack under the sad looks of voluntary keepers (this is not greed and not fear of theft, this is practice: you never know where you have to go, so it is better to take shoes with you if you are not absolutely sure that you will return to the same place).
Before the start of the ascent, a rather large prayer hall with figures of 36 (so they say) NATO. Probably only the Supreme, 37th - Tinjamin is not here. All figures are bright, in multi-colored clothes. Before them in the morning - offerings.
The staircase is built in the form of a covered gallery and makes a little more than half a turn in a spiral to the top.
At the beginning of the path, the staircase is quite wide, stone, on the steps there is a small market - they sell all kinds of unnecessary things, drinks and food.
Further, in places of stone, in places of metal, of uneven steepness, wide staircases with benches for rest. Covered with a rusty ridge roof made of profiled sheet, on which macaques rush noisily.
There are a lot of macaques.
Once the day did not work out right away, this is not surprising, because the macaque is one of the most disliked animals by me (for all my tolerance to the animal world - I even have a good attitude to rats and snakes).
Macaques (they are also Banderlog, who read about Mowgli) are very smart, highly organized, cunning and evil creatures with a reaction like a cobra, constantly charged to steal something. They grab not only edible, but shiny - glasses, cameras, chains from the neck, earrings from the ears.
To all their usual vices in this place, one more is added: they shit right on the steps, a lot and abundantly, and they themselves run about it.
Although the whole mountain is in thickets and the nearest bushes are just a stone's throw from the stairs.
How to counteract these forces of evil:
- do not feed the macaques, especially where they are not provided with a permanent state park (like Monkey Forest in Bali) - they will fly in, take away and spoil the clothes;
- do not shove a drill on them: either give the opportunity to retreat, or bypass it yourself (macaques have a clear personal space and are clearly visible when you invade it);
- do not approach the place where the harem collectively catches lice for the main male;
- and the most important! - always walk around the places of their accumulation with a stick in hand (a club is useless, even a symbolic twig is enough). Walking with a wand increases your authority several times or even an order of magnitude - of course, no one scatters in panic, but still, although lazily, they keep away.
By the way, macaques treat the locals with great respect, unlike tourists, and do not steal goods from stalls - it is immediately obvious that they were somehow convinced here of the inevitability of retribution for breaking order.
All this their shit is of course diligently cleaned and smeared, but nevertheless the whole staircase is stained and smudged and here and there heaps show off - with all their efforts, people simply cannot keep up with them.
The staircase is probably thoroughly washed only on major holidays - more often than not, you simply cannot drag water to such a height.
When we walked, it was relatively clean, especially if you are not fastidiously not looking at where your bare feet are stepping.
Advice for the squeamish and simply reasonable: take with you large wet wipes and more - you don't have to be distracted by thoughts of dirt and all kinds of bacilli-fungi.
Although the operating cult places of Burma are very, very clean (the stairs on Pope are an exception), still nobody canceled hygiene.
They went out, sat on the steps, rubbed their feet - and the mood lifted.
Here - do not forget to periodically wash with soap or disinfect the shoes from the inside (when it is possible to dry them).
By the way, the rationalization proposal to walk in socks for Buddhist temples and pagodas does not work - only barefoot.
On the way from the staircases, in some places, paths go to some cult places, stuck on the rocky cornices, but we did not turn there.
We climbed quite quickly, as it seems to me, we managed in 20-25 minutes. The end of the ascent is a platform with a small gilded boulder (a sort of Golden Rock in miniature).
Upstairs - babble!
Around landscapes: green hills in the west (where they came from) and the imposing Mount Popa - in the northeast. Here and there, among the greenery, snow-white monasteries sparkle with gold.
Everything is clean and tidy upstairs, not what is below. The temple is small, platforms and buildings on several levels, colors in the traditional Burmese-Buddhist style: snow-white with gold.
Inside, there are several rooms with sculptural groups that look more like not cult characters, but figures in the style of Madame Tussauds: in clothes, with painted and expressively drawn faces, united into plot groups.
There is a lot of money everywhere in the halls. In addition to the traditional transparent boxes for donations, bills on almost all figures (even in the hands of the Buddha) and next to them: tucked behind the cuffs of clothes, just somehow fixed on the body, laid out with offerings, even tucked into the split staff of a monk.
Practically none of the staff: one, without haste, shuffles with a broom, the other sits and puts something in the ledger. Both are in mundane clothes, the monks are not visible.
We said hello, donated some money.
I still really regret it. that he did not ask the bookkeeper to tell in more detail about the monastery - he blunted, the state was some kind of detached.
We went through the monastery, going down from platform to platform and passing through the corridors-galleries, and came out to the exit at its opposite end.
From here begins the descent along another staircase - gallery. A little lower, it connects with the one along which we climbed here.
Although the areas around the volcano are quite arid, the soil here is very fertile, as it consists of a large amount of volcanic ash. Unlike most of the region, about two hundred streams and rivers flow in the volcano area.
Here you are guaranteed a warm welcome from local merchants who live off tourism. Unfortunately, however, the military junta ruling the country neglects its citizens. The area is equally vulnerable to both tourists and the army, which even uses the forced labor of the local population. However, when a stable government returns to the country, this place deserves to be on top of the list of many worth seeing.